1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an apparatus and method for analyzing information concerning the physical and mental condition of a person, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for relating physical data (physiological factors) such as brain waves with mental data (psychological factors) such as alertness (wakefulness) or comfortableness (pleasantness).
2. Description of the Prior Art
People nowadays have many diversified views concerning their residence, work environment, and vehicles. The basis of selecting such things is being shifted from "on function" to "on human characteristics". As importance is thus increasingly attached to human sensitivity, a growing number of studies has recently begun to focus on sensitivity, or comfortableness.
Comfortableness stems from human feeling closely related to living conditions. The fact that feeling is subjective makes it difficult to measure by objective methods. Thus most evaluations for comfortableness have been qualitative and based on sensation, and there is virtually no established method of measuring it quantitatively.
As a quantitative analysis of human information, many studies for associating physical data such as brain waves, electrodiagrams, or heartbeat data with mental data such as alertness or comfortableness have been conducted. These attempts intend to more accurately estimate mental (psychological) data such as alertness and comfortableness quantitatively on the basis of physical data. Techniques of finding correlation between physiological factors and psychological factors generally utilize statistical analysis including multiple regression analysis and analysis of variance so as to develop an algorithm for estimating psychological data based on the analysis results. However, no useful algorithm has been developed yet which is sufficiently accurate and universal for practical use.